Union section meetings

Please click here to download the list of the Union section meetings.

TUBERCULOSIS SECTION

Bacteriology & Immunology Sub-Section

During the Berlin conference, the Bacteriology & Immunology Subsection of the Tuberculosis Section will be offering a number of activities including scientific symposia, poster sessions and a workshop. The symposia topics will include New Diagnostic tools, Laboratory Quality Assurance, Biomarkers for Tuberculosis, M.tuberculosis Strain diversity as well as a session on The Global Laboratory Initiative. The workshop will focus on “Practical Laboratory Issues in Low-resource Setting”.
The newly formed working group on “TB laboratory accreditation” will also give its report and plan future activities.
The sub-sectional meeting will be held Sunday 14^th 08:00-08:50 to review previous year’s events and discuss future direction including selection of sessions for the 2011 meeting of the Union.

Nurses and Allied Professionals Sub-Section

Join Tuberculosis Nurses and Allied Professionals (TB-NAPs) from around the globe on the journey from research and innovation to implementing solutions.

The World Conference on Lung Health highlights post graduate courses, workshops, symposia and abstract sessions relevant to nursing and allied professional practice in the field of Tuberculosis. The TB NAP program begins with three Post Graduate Courses featuring: TB Program monitoring and evaluation; Innovative evaluation methods to develop effective patient-centred health education and; Formative research to quality health-care services- human resource development (HRD).

This is followed on Friday afternoon by a workshop looking at operational research in community DOT programs, titled, Impact of Community-based TB programme on primary health care.

Specific TB NAP Symposia will be conducted on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, check the program for more detail. In addition, just under five hundred abstracts pertinent to education, advocacy, social issues, policy and programme implementation were submitted for oral and poster presentation.  The Featured Oral Abstracts relating to these topics will be presented in the session titled, TB programme implementation: grass roots and tree tops.

In addition there will be meetings of health professionals working within the various sections of The Union. TB-NAPs are invited to come along, learn, network and contribute to the meetings of the TB Section and the NAP Sub-section. These groups contribute to the upcoming World Conference programs and participate in inter conference section activities. The three TB NAP Working Groups, Best Practice for Patient Care, Regional mobilisation of NAPs and TB Education and Training, will also meet during the course of the conference.  We look forward to seeing you there, come along and get involved, bring a friend!

Zoonotic TB Sub-Section

The Zoonotic TB Sub- Section will be holding an exciting Symposium entitled, “Zoonotic TB: Public Health and Socioeconomic Challenges”. Interesting topics to be covered include: 1) Antimicrobial therapies against Extra-pulmonary tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis, 2) Epidemiological factors in transmission of M. bovis between animals and humans in Mexico, 3) Molecular characterisation of M. bovis isolates from cattle and humans in Bangladesh, 4) Mycobacterium bovis in human cases, M. bovis in the United Kingdom, and 6) Mycobacterium bovis antibiotic resistance profiles in Tunisia.
In addition, the Sub-section will be holding a Working Group Meeting that will focus on the contribution of M. bovis to the total burden of tuberculosis in humans.

HIV SECTION

The HIV Section of The Union has been in existence since 2008. Each year the number of HIV-related symposia, post-graduate courses, workshops and abstracts continues to grow at the annual World Conference on Lung Health. This year, for the Berlin meeting, there are over 10 HIV Section-sponsored symposia, as well as several other HIV-related symposia from other sections (e.g., The TB SectionSection). Please follow the following link to access the HIV and TB/HIV-related roadmap. This year’s highlights include symposia on diagnosis, case finding, laboratory issues, care and treatment, advocacy, human rights, as well as education and training and other topics.  In addition, popular symposia from past conferences will be repeated with new stimulating themes. For example “Controversies in HIV” and the National TB Programme Manager and National AIDS Programme Managers session will bring together HIV and TB programme managers from different countries to discuss improving HIV and TB programme collaboration. 

In addition to the planned symposia, the HIV Section is pleased to announce the expansion of the number of featured abstract-driven oral presentation sessions. This year there are two sessions that will explore progress in HIV and TB programme linkages and TB-HIV clinical and epidemiological research and care.  The HIV Section is committed to highlighting the very best of HIV-TB related scientific research and programme practice. Finally before the conference begins, we encourage conference attendees to participate in one of five post-graduate courses and workshops that are being sponsored by the HIV Section. The HIV Section looks forward to seeing you at one of the many stimulating sessions and activities planned for the Berlin World Conference on Lung Health.

LUNG HEALTH SECTION

2010 is the Year of the Lung. The Lung Health Section has organised a stimulating and informative programme of workshops, symposia and poster sessions for the 41st World Conference on Lung Health in 2010 in Berlin. Both adult and child lung health topics will be addressed in the context of the conference´s theme of research, innovation and solutions. Adult Lung Health focuses on major causes of lung disease in adults that are common, neglected and provide management challenges in the resource-limited setting such as COPD, asthma and occupational lung disease, as well as on aspects of prevention relating to indoor air pollution and tobacco. All major causes of lung disease in children in low and middle income countries are within the focus of the Child Lung Health group and include childhood pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV-related lung disease and asthma. The Conference also gives delegates the opportunity to attend the section meetings and become involved in working groups that address a range of adult and child lung health issues. This conference promises to be an excellent one not to be missed!

TOBACCO CONTROL SECTION

The Tobacco Control Section will be offering a range of interesting activities and events at the conference including 5 scientific symposia, poster sessions and a pre-conference workshop. These sessions will give participants an opportunity to hear about new research and effective action on important topical issues in tobacco control, as well as to consider what lessons tobacco control can learn from policy and practice addressing TB, HIV and lung health, and vice versa. Highlighted topics include: reducing exposure to secondhand smoke including national smokefree legislation and smokefree policies in health-care facilities (2 symposia); achieving policy change through advocacy and/or using scientific evidence (workshop and  symposium); the role of public health education (1 symposium). All sessions involve presentations from researchers, health professionals and advocates drawn from a range of countries which are at different stages of the tobacco epidemic. In addition there will be opportunities to look critically at tobacco control from different perspectives including inequalities and gender.  You are also warmly invited to attend the Tobacco section meeting where plans for future conferences and activities will be discussed.